


Unattached Drifter Christmas

by coldrottingtrees



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ace SPN Week, Angel Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Castiel, Coda, Depressed Dean, Episode: s05e14 My Bloody Valentine, Grey-Asexual Castiel, M/M, Mind Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, True Forms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:04:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldrottingtrees/pseuds/coldrottingtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season 5, the My Bloody Valentine episode. Obviously, I decided to sidetrack the episode fairly significantly. ;)</p><p>This is my contribution to Asexual Supernatural Week! Some asexual Castiel, along with what an angelic "alternative" to sex might be like.</p><p>This is also a look into a time when Dean was portrayed as disinterested in sex. The show called him "dead inside." This fic explores how someone who is suffering from what appears to be deep depression and PTSD can relate to someone who is asexual and perhaps find comfort in that relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unattached Drifter Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Cas is written as asexual in this fic, in the human sense, however, he has an angelic sexuality of sorts. So, maybe that qualifies him as a variety of grey-A? So I tagged him for both up there.
> 
> Started writing this for AceSPNWeek, and then found [this prompt](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/88207.html?thread=34595727#t34595727) on the SPN Kink Meme, so I decided to try to rework what I already had to make it into a decent fill for that prompt. It isn't a great fill, but I'm hoping the prompter will like it okay, and hopefully maybe other people will like the prompt enough to fill it as well and do a better job hitting all of their request than I did. :)

When Dean came back from Hell, he was different. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want it to be real. He just wanted to try to put on an act and bury it and get on with what he needed to do. He tried to be a robot. He tried to do his job and fake it.

And he drank. A lot.

But Sam noticed.

"Valentine's Day," he prodded, his tone soft with confused concern, a cautious line cast, trying to hook Dean into finally saying something. "Your favorite holiday, remember? Unattached Drifter Christmas. Aren't you gonna go out and celebrate?"

"Not interested," Dean shrugged, getting up and walking away to grab a beer.

He could see Sam's aghast expression from the corner of his eye as he went. Was it really so strange?

He didn't want to _touch_ anyone. He didn't want to _be touched_ , maybe not ever again. He thought about bodies, moaning, quivering, wet, and it wasn't sexual anymore. He thought about women, naked, soft, their skin exposed to his touch, and he didn't trust himself. He saw his hands stroking across smooth curves of vulnerable flesh and knew how awfully _fragile_ it was. Knew what those awful hands had _done_ , knew just how delicate the line between alive and dead really was. How terrifyingly easy it was to _break_ , to _cut_ , to _hurt_.

He saw a woman's warm, beautiful body, and his stomach turned, images of exactly how she would look, guts spilling on the floor, skin dulling to grey, coming unbidden to his mind. He couldn’t look at a woman and see something _sexy_ anymore. He saw _meat_. He saw what her corpse was going to look like.

He was _broken_.

“It’s when a dog doesn’t eat. That’s when you know something’s really wrong,” Sam said with a sad eyebrow furrow.

“Remarkably patronizing concern duly noted,” Dean grumbled. He took a long drink. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Sam looked unconvinced.

“Fine, I’m going out,” Dean said, finishing his beer and tossing the empty beer bottle in the trash.

“Good,” Sam sighed, looking relieved as he settled in with the laptop. “Have fun.”

Dean grunted with annoyance, shrugged on a jacket, and left.

 

* * *

 

Dean drove himself out to an empty lot in a commercial district overgrown with tall weeds and shrubs. The Impala was nearly swallowed by the vegetation. He got out and laid on the hood, like he used to when he and Sam were boys, and looked up at the stars.

It was frightening, because it was so overwhelming and huge, but the stars made him think of Cas now. He didn’t really know how to deal with the thought of being _friends_ with a being that could be reasonably compared to the stars.

“Hey, Cas,” he whispered. “You around?”

Castiel appeared standing beside the Impala among the tall, spiny flowers.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey.”

Cas cocked his head in confusion as Dean’s eyes drifted back heavenward.

“Dean… why have you called me?”

“You know, I _still_ haven’t ever gotten you laid yet,” Dean smirked.

Cas gave an annoyed grunt that he’d probably picked up from spending too much time around Dean.

“It’s truly remarkable how little you value the importance of my time.”

Dean turned his head to look at the angel. Castiel looked like a frumpy, annoyed tax accountant. But, God, there was something about him. Something potent that crawled right under Dean’s skin, right under all that awful, all that rot and all the screaming and pain and gore and shone a bright, clear light.

“That’s not true,” Dean said, a sudden outburst of honesty, easier because Sam wasn’t here and he didn’t feel the need to wear so many masks, maintain the pretense of unshakable strength and manliness and all the other bullshit John had drilled into him. “I just wanna talk to you.”

Castiel tilted his head again, this time studying Dean with hawk-like intensity, peering into him. He appeared to notice the difference, and looked fascinated by it.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Dean mumbled, suddenly feeling embarrassed and awkward under the angel’s scrutiny. He slid off the hood of the car to sit on the ground, leaned against her side. He looked up at Cas and patted the ground, inviting Cas to come sit beside him.

Cas did.

Dean shivered in his nearness. Castiel was electric. He was a raw force of nature. He wasn’t _human_. He wasn’t _fragile_. Being around him didn’t leave Dean antsy and sour in his stomach, constantly aware of how easily broken a body could be under Dean’s evil hands.

Dean preferred women, in general. They were soft, and pretty, and women had never hurt him, not the way men had. Women made him feel safe and warm, or at least they used to, and that was what he’d always found beautiful.

But _Cas_ , Cas was _beautiful_ too. Dean stared at Cas and wondered, how on Earth he was sitting here in the weeds like a star-struck teenager finding this tax accountant-looking guy just absolutely _beautiful_.

“You’ve… never wanted to?” Dean stammered.

“Wanted to what?” Cas asked, infinitely patient the way angels are.

“You know,” Dean laughed, boyishly dodging it for a moment. Then he heard himself, heard how utterly smitten he sounded, and cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Sex, Cas, haven’t you ever in your existence wanted to have sex?”

“No,” Cas said plainly. “Angels aren’t sexual creatures, Dean. We weren’t created for that. We do not procreate. We are androgynous beings and lack sexual urges. I am indifferent.”

Dean felt something inside himself settle, relaxing warmly. It felt like a pressure valve being released, a weight off his shoulders. Deep inside, he appreciated the physical things Cas would never ask of him. But another side of him felt oddly compelled.

“Just indifferent, huh?”

“Utterly indifferent.”

“So if I said I wanted to have sex with you, you’d say no.”

Cas’s eyes widened with shock and Dean grinned, enormously pleased with himself.

“I managed to get a rise out of you,” Dean gloated.

“I would merely be quite surprised, given what I know about you, that’s all,” Cas said, once he’d recovered.

“‘What you know about me’?” Dean blinked, staring at Cas. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It simply means that, given what I know of your personality and personal history, I do not assume you would be interested in sexual relations with my vessel.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at Cas, an ugly, exposed feeling crawling up the back of his neck. “What _personal history?_ Elaborate.”

“When you allude to having sex, you always imply it has been or will be with a woman, and my vessel is male. I don't believe my vessel is to your liking.”

“Oh,” Dean nodded, relaxing.

He grabbed a foxtail and twirled the weed between his fingers for a moment. “It hasn’t always been women,” he said once he’d gathered the strength, looking up at Cas.

“Oh,” Cas whispered.

“So,” Dean said, eyes dropping back to his foxtail, stroking his fingers along the soft, fluffy tip. “When two angels love each other very much,” he said with a sly grin, “what do they do? Anything?”

“You’re wondering if there is something angels do that is analogous to sex between a human couple in a romantic sense?”

“Yeah, to put it in the driest, dullest, nerdiest way possible,” Dean teased.

“Shut up, Dean,” Cas said, putting two fingers lightly to Dean’s forehead.

Dean’s whole body arched, his head pressing back against the Impala, and his heart hammered and his breath came in hot, deep gasps. Blue light radiated throughout his vision, but he felt like he could see color _within_ the pale blue, like a marbling of iridescence. And the colors _sang_ , and the song resonated through his body like being in the mosh pit during the best bass line at the best rock concert in the world.

It was just a flash, just for an instant, and then Cas removed his fingers and it was gone.

“Oh my God,” Dean panted, sagging against the Impala, fingers of one hand digging into the earth and the other clutched to his chest. “That was fucking amazing.”

Cas smiled gently.

“That was better than sex,” Dean said, not really to Cas or anyone in particular, just announcing it because it was true and he was astonished. “That was better than _pie_.”

“That was just a little touch to shut you up,” Cas murmured smugly.

Dean stared at Cas.

“Gonna make me beg for it, or what?” Dean asked, turning in toward Cas, leaning his side against the car.

Cas shook his head.

“No, it’s… far too… personal, Dean. That is as far as I go for ‘fun.’”

“If you went any further, it’d be _making love_ instead of just screwing around, is that what you’re saying?” Dean grinned.

“You have a talent for cheapening things, but I suppose that’s one way of attempting to explain it,” Cas begrudged.

Dean eyed Cas, feeling heat for the first time in a long time, finally _wanting_ something again. He swung over to grab Cas’s shoulders and straddle his hips, and rocked against him. He fisted his hands in Cas’s trenchcoat, adoring it, reveling in the thought that somehow he’d found an intimacy that allowed him the security of remaining fully clothed.

“Can I kiss you?” Dean whispered, taking one hand out of Cas’s coat to lace his fingers through Cas’s thick, dark hair.

Cas’s eyes were wide with astonishment, and kept distractedly jumping from Dean's eyes to quickly glance at his lips and his body.

“I… did not expect this of you,” Cas whispered.

Dean chuckled and gave Cas’s head a soft tug back by the hair he held loosely fisted in one hand. Cas’s cheeks were flushed, and his breath hitched as Dean leaned close.

“You sure you’re indifferent?” Dean said in a low, teasing drawl, lips so close to Cas’s the breath of his words touched Cas’s lips as he spoke, and he could feel the effect it had on the angel, could feel Castiel shiver underneath him.

“My vessel has certain… basic physical reactions,” Cas said softly, eyes still roaming all over Dean. “It does... respond... to you.”

“Can I?” Dean asked again, rolling his body against Cas indulgently, shoving his fingers through Cas’s hair, making a mess of his already rumpled appearance.

“Yes,” Cas said with a little nod, staring at Dean.

Dean smiled wide, clenched his fingers tight in Cas’s hair, and kissed him like the world was ending, deeply and thoroughly, starting off soft and sweet and gentle and eventually losing himself to wildly passionate, aggressive kisses.

“I want more,” Dean begged breathily against Cas’s lips, rocking down against Cas’s hips. “More of _you_. Not your vessel, _you. Please_.”

Castiel stared, eyes so big, as if he couldn’t believe Dean was real, as if he couldn’t believe the things he was hearing. He put his hand against Dean’s chest hesitantly, and Dean took his hand out of Cas’s hair to cover it with his own.

“C’mon, baby,” Dean leaned forward to purr into Cas’s ear, holding Cas’s hand against his chest. “Please.”

With a sudden shove and a roll from Cas, Dean was abruptly on his back in the tall grass and weeds, Cas laying fully on top of him, that hand still pressed over his heart. Cas’s eyes were so _intense_ , and his hand was so warm and so _heavy_ , and then suddenly the world erupted in light.

The pale blue light was nuanced with many depths of colors, and he realized now that it wasn’t just a swirling chaos, it was a _being_ , unfathomably huge, stretching up and up and up, and it had _faces_ , and it had _wings_ , and _God_ , the wings were so beautiful, all of them. And the way he felt those colors singing in his bones, the way he felt it reverberating through his whole body, that was the music of its _voice_. He strained and tried with all his being to focus in on that sound, to tune himself to it like harmonizing the strings of a guitar, so that he could understand what the voice was singing. He felt like he was so close, like if he just tried hard enough, if he just stayed long enough, he could tune himself, could harmonize with that music, and learn to sing along.

He gasped as Cas’s hand pulled away from his chest, his eyes flying open. He blinked rapidly as the world came back into focus. His whole body was burning hot, sweating like he’d run a marathon, and he was panting heavily. He felt euphoric, like he’d just done the best drugs of his life, but also frustrated. It was over too soon, and he already wanted more.

“Cas,” he said, sitting up, his voice thin with exhaustion, “that was you?”

Castiel nodded. He seemed somewhat leery, like he was waiting for Dean to make a wisecrack.

“You’re really fucking beautiful,” was all Dean could say. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, flopping back down to the ground.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Castiel said softly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Dean laughed. “Thanks, Cas. Happy Valentine’s to you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> in case you live in a part of the world that doesn't have them, [this post](http://rottingtrees.tumblr.com/post/97358703941/englishsnow-by-monodrift) has pictures of foxtails (the 1st and 3rd pics)


End file.
